[Hermann the Cherusker]

The Gospel of Matthew was largely copied from the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Mark was written by someone who knew very little about Judaism, possibly by a gentile. So, if Matthew was once written in Aramaic, it must have been a translation from Greek.

And your reliable witness for this assertion is ...? To me, it appears that the Gospel of St. Mark is an abridgement of St. Matthew, with lots of stuff about St. Peter that might be taken as hubris were he preaching it himself taken out, a certain latinizing flavor added, and slight details only St. Peter or St. Mark would have known added in.

Certainly St. Matthew was a tax-collecting apostate, until he met Christ and decided to leave his sins behind. But the rest of the Apostles were more ordinary folks - fishermen mostly. One was St. Simon the Zealot, obviously an epithet concerning his religious beliefs and showing him to be of the Zealot party that would later fight Rome in AD 66-70.

[Inyokern]

To me, it appears that the Gospel of St. Mark is an abridgement of St. Matthew,

That makes no sense at all. The Gospel of Mark contains errors regarding Jewish doctrine, dates of holidays and Judean geography which were corrected in Matthew. Why would the author of Mark change things which were correct in Matthew and make them wrong?

[Valin]

Wasn't Mark an associate of Peter? I seem to recall reading that.